Applied Data Scientist

Cresta

About The Position

As an Applied Data Scientist on our Insights team, you will help pioneer the next generation of Cresta features that power how enterprises understand and optimize every customer interaction. You’ll partner directly with Product Managers, Machine Learning Engineers, other Data Scientists, and a set of strategic design-partner customers to solve their biggest challenges. If you love working from first principles in a rapid iteration loop with customers - this is your chance to have an outsized impact on the customer experience industry.

Requirements

3+ years building and shipping models for real-world business applications, ideally in NLP and LLM-based systems
Strong proficiency in Python and standard ML / data tooling (e.g., SQL, data pipelines, experiment frameworks)
World-class first principles thinking and ML intuition
Ability to turn ambiguous product asks into crisp problem statements, eval specs, metrics, and hypotheses
Experience working directly with customers or internal stakeholders to understand constraints, explain tradeoffs, and iterate on solutions
Comfort working with design-partner style engagements where requirements evolve rapidly and you’re expected to co-create the solution
Track record of building evaluation suites that go beyond single scalar metrics to capture reliability, safety, and qualitative user experience
Strong written and verbal communication skills; able to clearly explain complex technical work to both engineers and non-technical partners

Nice To Haves

Experience building ML or analytics systems for customer experience, contact centers, or enterprise SaaS
Prior work on analytics / insights products (e.g., deep research systems, anomaly detection, customer experience analytics, voice of customer)
Published work at ML / NLP conferences

Responsibilities

Co-develop new capabilities with a small number of high-impact enterprise customers along with our product, engineering, and design teams; using their real workflows and constraints as your testbed
Communicate effectively across all levels of the organization
Plan and run short, focused design-partner engagements (days to weeks) where you ship early versions, collect structured feedback, and iterate quickly
Generalize learnings from each design partner into reusable, productized capabilities rather than one-off bespoke models
Partner with domain experts to curate high-quality eval guidelines and datasets for domains such as CSAT prediction and outcome prediction (across both human<>human and human<>AI interactions)
Use the best tools + models for the job (simple and interpretable where it matters, sophisticated where it can drive outsized value
Write clear specs and experiment reports that make tradeoffs and assumptions explicit
Stay close to the research frontier in ML/AI, LLMs, and evals, translating promising ideas into pragmatic, shippable improvements
Where applicable, help translate your solutions into publications, whitepapers, technical blogs, etc.

Benefits

Comprehensive medical, dental, and vision coverage with plans to fit you and your family
Flexible PTO to take the time you need, when you need it
Paid parental leave for all new parents welcoming a new child
Retirement savings plan to help you plan for the future
Remote work setup budget to help you create a productive home office
Monthly wellness and communication stipend to keep you connected and balanced
In-office meal program and commuter benefits provided for onsite employees
Compensation at Cresta
Cresta’s approach to compensation is simple: recognize impact, reward excellence, and invest in our people.
We offer competitive, location-based pay that reflects the market and what each individual brings to the table.
In addition to base pay, total compensation includes equity and a comprehensive benefits package for you and your family.